BREAKING NEWS:

BCC ‘thrilled’ to announce approval for the Cleaning Hygiene Operative Apprenticeship. Full Story here.

My radio station of choice these days is Fix Radio, which is aimed at tradespeople. Unsurprisingly it's one of the fastest-growing in the UK: it plays a wide range of music, it’s introduced us to new artists and it has an enormous playlist which means we’re not bombarded with the same songs, over and over. Plus the chats between presenters and guests are interesting and informative for those not in the building trade and are especially useful for those of us who are responsible for the buildings in which we live and work, who will need to employ tradespeople at some stage. Knowing a bit about the problems we’re dealing with, can save us a small fortune when crossing paths with some of the more unscrupulous tradespeople. For yes – there will always be those who’ll try and make more money by bamboozling us with science! We find a good one and we stick with them, don’t we – even if we have to wait a while, (since they all seem to be inundated with work these days)? 

 

When my daughters were considering career and university options, I did my utmost to persuade them to go into one of the trades, telling them they’d earn excellent money and would never be out of work, since their skills would always be in demand. I didn’t realise back then just how accurate my words would one day turn out to be… Yes, it appears that just as it is with cleaners, the services of those working in the construction industry trades are now very hard to come by. According to Fix, some two thirds have had to cancel or delay work because of labour shortages, leading to a real backlog. Mulling over the situation while doing my own cleaning, it occurred to me that perhaps we as an industry are missing a trick when it comes to trying to rebrand cleaning as a profession? Think about it. Many of the professions are, quite rightly, under fire. Look at journalism and the judiciary, for example, and the respect that’s been lost for them because of incompetence, bias and poor decision-making. We all look up to good tradespeople, don’t we? They’ve gained qualifications and have often benefited from on-the-job training with more experienced colleagues – with the lucky ones having served an apprenticeship too, while many are improving their skills with ongoing training. They, like cleaners, are providing essential services that require training and experience if they’re to be done well and safely. For me it’s a perfect alignment. 

 

Please help us to get Government to recognise our industry as a national priority! Visit https://britishcleaningcouncil.org/2023/02/06/download-letter-here

 

Cleanzine is taking its annual housekekeeping and maintenance break these next two weeks, but will still be 'live' and able to take major breaking news which will feature on our Facebook page. Our next broadcast will be on 7th September.